


Leave out all the rest

by beesp



Series: Where is my mind [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Captain America: Civil War Trailer, Gen, Imprisonment, Kidnapping, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-20 23:41:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6030160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beesp/pseuds/beesp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>I got Sam to follow Bucky for months while I was busy with Avengers duty, but it took the two of us working together not to lose his tracks. Bucky — or the Winter Soldier — was very careful.</i><br/>Or how Steve managed to get Bucky trapped in that awful room and what happened there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leave out all the rest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [liar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liar/gifts).



> I really feel like I don't know where this series is going, but what can I do? I want to keep on writing about Bucky and Steve.  
> As always, this work is inspired by songs that I shouldn't really be mentioning, since they're in the title.  
> This work is a gift to Liar because we see Stucky the same way and if it wasn't for her, I would have stopped writing a long time ago.  
> Hope you enjoy this shit show. These two were doomed from the beginning.

I got Sam to follow Bucky for months while I was busy with Avengers duty, but it took the two of us working together not to lose his tracks. Bucky — or the Winter Soldier — was very careful. We would find traces of armed robbery and then nothing for weeks. He stole food and pieces of clothing and cars. We never found clues as to where he slept.

Until he got scared and confused. That’s how we found him. He was running away from yet another robbery, but he went up a building and got stuck there. He was having a sort of panic attack, while the police was on their way. We got to him.

He recognized us from the battle at the Triskelion, he didn’t want to fight us. He didn’t have a purpose for it. The Winter Soldier was never inefficient, even when he killed or fought.

His instincts kicked in, though. He forgot about his state — his fear, his panic, everything. He wore the suit of the assassin, of the weapon HYDRA had made out of him. He was ready to do everything he needed to escape. To neutralize his obstacles.

Sam and I fought together, side by side. He couldn’t possibly outmatch us. We could contain him, we could keep him from hurting anyone else - or even himself. I could only find the strength to block his blows, while Sam effectively hit him from above, on his Falcon wings.

I felt like scum. One against two. It was an unfair fight, even though the Winter Soldier had the experience in espionage and combat that only Natasha could match, my physical strength and a  general’s tactics ability. He was the perfect soldier, after all.

I kept telling myself I was doing it for Bucky throughout the entire time. I was trying to help my best friend, take him to safety. Safe even from his own consciousness. But when I had to block his punches, when I had to restrain him, kick him in his stomach, press him on his neck; when I had to distract him while Sam flew down to land on him; when I kept him down on the floor of the building roof and Sam drugged him with a heavy dose of anaesthetic, I saw his eyes. I held his cold stare. He was lost. His eyelids slowly fluttered and he fell to sleep.

We loaded him unto a stolen track, cuffed and bleeding. I was the cause.

I left on my motorbike, off to some mission of unforeseeable length, the Avengers the only defense left against alien and Earth-bound threats.

 

I came back two weeks later. Sam had sent me information about the safe location he and Bucky were hiding in. It was an abandoned building, an old factory of some sort, deep in the suburbs of the city. Sam met me at entrance. Dirty walls, broken windows.

Dust rose while I stopped. Sam greeted me with a small smile.

“He remembered you” he said. It sounded like he tiptoed around that sentence. Sam’s complete attention was glued to my every movement. He expected a reaction of some sort.

How was I supposed to expect him to already remember me. How was I supposed to know I’d get Bucky back so soon. I don’t know what he thought, he gestured me to follow him.

“I took care of him the best I could” he explained. “I try and come here at least twice a day. I give him meals fresh out of the oven”. He made way through an intricate series of stairs and doors and turns. There were pieces of plaster all over the floors. Some ceilings had completely collapsed. “He didn’t speak at all the first week. Then I thought…” he trailed off, uncertain on how to phrase it. “I started telling him about you. He listened. He looked at me. Like he knew then he wasn’t a prisoner” Sam was having a hard time explaining. I rested my hand on his shoulder. Sam felt encouraged to keep going. He obviously was shocked by what HYDRA had done to Bucky to make him that way. “He knew who you were, he wasn’t afraid. He ate everything I gave him, he made eye contact. Sometimes he even kinda smiled…”.

That was when we entered a vast space. Filthy paint, pieces of wood scattered around. The doors had been taken away from their frames, leaving an empty large space off of four previous rooms. There were skeletons of metal, rusty pipes running along the walls.

At the end of it all Bucky’s metal arm was put under an extremely old press, so that he couldn’t move. He was sitting uncomfortably, his side against the machine.

I felt the heat of panic coming up from my stomach. That battered up man was the one who threw me off mid-air, only to save me from the wreckage of the helicarriers. That looked a lot more like the Winter Soldier than Bucky.

I proceeded slowly, a step ahead of Sam.

“Buck” I called him. He lifted his head, jaws clamped. “Do you remember me?”.

And then incredibly “Your mom’s name was Sarah” he answered. There was anger there, but no feral rage. “You used to wear newspapers in your shoes” I even managed to see sort of a smirk ripple on Bucky’s lips.

 

It felt like I couldn’t inhale or exhale like a human being. I repeated several times “I should’ve come back earlier. You should have told me”.

Sam steadied both his hands on my shoulder. We were talking under our breath in the corridor that led to Bucky’s personal all-new chamber of torture. “He can’t be trusted. You know how strong his metal arm is”.

“If I was here, we wouldn’t have to keep him like that”.

“Yes, we would”. Sam was trying to make me see reason. “You can’t fight him, Steve”.

That was true. I calmed down. I let myself sit on the floor and Sam left me on my own for some time.

Since I had known the Winter Soldier was Bucky, I could only hope I’d be able to carry him all the way out of hell. Apparently breathing and surviving weren’t the same as living. The moment I understood there was still hope, right there in that damaged place, it felt like I came back out of the ice.

Bucky - or what was left of him - could be salvaged. He did most of the work on his own, anyway.

Sam brought back some bottles of water. One was for Bucky. He handed two of them to me. “You be safe in there. I’ll be waiting right here for as long as you need” he patted me on the back and smiled faintly.

 

Bucky had smiled at me, but when he saw me again, he was visibly alert. I sat in front of him, as close as I dared. I was frightened by what he was capable, but I wanted to recover my best friend, the man I loved, my Bucky. He didn’t move his stare, not for one second. His eyes were locked on me since the moment I came in sight.

I didn’t know exactly what he remembered, so I held off everything that came through my mind. As soon as I had been near him alone, I had wanted to take his hand in mine and stroke his hair. I didn’t.

“What do you remember, Buck?” I asked as calmly as I could manage to get my voice out of my throat.

“I remember that you always called me Bucky, rarely Buck, never James” he was grinning. I gave him his bottle of water. He sipped it while he talked. The resemblance to my Bucky was breathtaking. “I remember bits and pieces of our past together. I remember some scrapes of my time with HYDRA. I remember I fell off the train. That is my most persistent memory. I remember what they did to me… Most of what I remember is about you, anyway”. He shifted his body weight on his other leg. He was in discomfort and pain.

“I know that this is horrible, but we honestly don’t know what to expect from you if we let you free”.

“I understand” he nodded at what I told him and popped down the rest of the water, then cast away the bottle. “It doesn’t matter really. It’s not like I feel everything clearly”.

“What do you mean?” I casually got myself nearer. My intent was to get him to a point he’d let me comfort him, to a point where I could be sure who I was talking to.

“I mean… I know what’s happening to me, I know how I’m supposed to react, but everything is blurry and distant” he explained, his face deep in thought. “I _remember_ anger, pain, joy… but nothing comes to me except reactions to physical solicitations and confusion”.

“We’re gonna take you some place safe, you’re going to talk to psychiatrists and doctors and you’ll feel better” I reassured him.

“I feel clear about you, though” his expression pierced me. “I cared for you. I care for you even now”. His features seemed softer, then. “When Sam talked about you, I knew I could trust him. I want to be with you, Steve Rogers, because I’ve always trusted you”.

This broke my heart. This man was ready to lay his life in the hands of someone who had imprisoned him, because his feelings told him to. In a world where no one thought the Winter Soldier was more than a chunk of metal, he only had me.

“I’m going to take care of you, Bucky. Nobody is going to hurt you” I promised him.

“It doesn’t matter if they hurt me. I don’t want to be alone anymore”.

So I did the most stupid thing I could. I extended my body toward him to hold his hand tight. He wrapped his arm around my neck. ‘ _He’s going to suffocate me_ ’, I panicked. But he only pushed me against himself. I circled his back with my arms as tight as possible.

“This time nothing is going to take you away from me, Bucky” I whispered in his hair.


End file.
